Project Overview

This guide is for public servants who are designing, procuring or managing human-centred design (HCD) projects.

Organisation

Victorian Government Department of Premier & Cabinet

Team

Department of Premier and Cabinet - Digital, Design and Innovation

Service Design Team:
Mathan Ratinam - Content Coordination & Photography
Sophie Turner - Content Coordination
Peta Fawcett - Design & Layout
Monika Farnbach
Jasmin Hamid
Duncan Legge
Dori Maniatakis
Contributors
Jithma Beneragama
Carolynne Hamilton
Bridget Kelly
Georgina Lewis
Philippa Nihill
Rebecca Sloan
Jo Squire
Jo Tayler
Amanda Warmerdam

Key content partner:
Paper Giant

Reference partners:
Meld Studios
Queensland State Government

Project Brief

It was developed for use by public servants who are new to HCD practice. It will help you collaborate better with the service design team from the Digital, Design and Innovation (DDI) Branch, service designers in your department and external design agencies.

It’s structured to get you up and running quickly and can be used in several ways.

Project Innovation/Need

Scoping and planning a project
This guide can be used as a starting point for when you’re planning and scoping design-based activities. It can help you structure a project by providing an understanding of common approaches, time frames and budgets for HCD projects.

Procuring an external design agency
This guide can help you understand the type of design project you need. It describes typical deliverables to include in your request for quote and may be useful when assessing responses from design agencies; their methods, proposed outputs and price.

Increasing your design literacy
Non-designers can use this guide during a project to help them feel informed and have better conversations with design practitioners and to validate approaches suggested by a supplier.

Precedents and case studies
It provides VicGov case studies, references and evidence of application to help determine whether an HCD approach is right for your work and make the business case for taking a design-led approach.

Why use this playbook?
There are many HCD playbooks, guides and toolkits available. This guide is unique because it was written for the context of the Victorian public sector. It seeks to demystify the HCD process by combining HCD methods and outputs into a set of suggested project plans. It does some of the thinking for you via the guidance on assessing your options and practical steps for executing a project.

This playbook will help you incorporate an HCD approach into your work by introducing design processes, costs, time frames and what outputs to expect.